


Capital

by the_alchemist



Category: Cities (Anthropomorfic)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, F/M, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2809070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A provincial visitor to London meets a beautiful stranger, whom he gradually realises is London herself, in all her contradictory glory. London is used to people falling in love with her, but it turns out that even a 2000 year old anthropomorphic personification is capable of being surprised now and again ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Capital

**Author's Note:**

  * For [incandescent (lmeden)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/gifts).



> Thanks to S and R, fabulous beta readers.

I met her in a bar in Soho.

That makes me seem cooler than I am. I don’t normally frequent bars in Soho, or anywhere else for that matter. But I’d read something in the paper about this one closing down because they were building flats and ... I guess the article was written with such love that it made me nostalgic for something I had never known. Or maybe it was fellow feeling of one has-been for another.

She’s one of those people you just can’t help but notice, even in a crowded room, even surrounded by taller, thinner, more beautiful women. She’s the kind of girl the French call jolie-laide: nose and mouth too big, kind of plump (but oh, the curves on her body, and oh, the dimple on her cheek!) and black-brown curls bobbing crisply to her shoulders and bright blue eyes that _didn’t go_ with her dark hair and darkish skin, but were all the better for that.

‘Is this taken?’ Miraculously, the other seat at her table was empty.

‘Be my guest,’ she said. Holding her martini glass in her left hand, she held out her right to shake, a little awkwardly, to avoid the clutter on the table. ‘I’m Tamesa.’ And she flashed me the kind of smile that made me want to slay dragons for her.

‘I’m Al,’ I said. ‘So ... do you come here often?’ I _think_ I got away with it as cheeky parody rather than an actual cheesy pick-up line.

‘Kinda,’ she said. ‘Not for much longer though.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I heard they’re knocking it down. Shame.’

‘Is it?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’

‘Well ... so many of these old places are going, aren’t they? London isn’t what it used to be.’

‘No.’ She was smiling _that smile_ again. ‘It’s not.’

Maybe she was famous, maybe that’s why I thought I recognised her.

A drunk in leather trousers lurched past, then he did a double-take and stared at my companion. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Fucking cheeky bitch, coming here, and–’

‘Come on,’ she said, standing up and draining her martini. She didn’t look scared, only pissed off, though the drunk was still ranting on about something or other. She shrugged on one of those coats that flare out at the waist.

I followed her out into a narrow alley, where the bins were, and a couple of shopfronts (one had blacked out windows and the sign ‘private shop’; the other, incongruously, sold teapots. ‘What was all that about?’ I asked.

She lit a cigarette and shrugged. ‘It’s me that’s buying the place,’ she said.

The drunk had opened the window and was yelling out. ‘I loved you. I fucking loved you, you cunt.’

She slipped her hand into mine, and it gave me that electric, tingly shivery thing. ‘Do you mind walking me down the road?’ she asked.

‘Sure,’ I said. Then: ‘who was that guy, an ex or something?’

She laughed. ‘Just a guy I know. I know a lot of people.’

That turned out to be true. As we walked down Berwick Street I tried to ignore a homeless guy sat in a nest of cardboard boxes, filthy blankets and bulging carrier bags. But then he called her name. She stopped and walked over to him. ‘Hey Mark,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

‘All the better for seeing you, Tammy love. Spare any change?’

‘Sure,’ she said, reached in her coat pocket, and gave him a handful of coins.

‘You’re a good girl,’ said Mark. ‘My mates think I’m mad for saying it, but you’re a good girl.’

We walked on through Piccadilly Circus, past Eros, who looked vaguely embarrassed by the ridiculous pile of Victoriana on which he was practising his ballet, past the billboards that shone down on her pretty, plump face.

‘So what brings you to London?’ she asked.

Was it really that obvious I wasn’t local? ‘Just ... stuff,’ I said. ‘I’ve been a bit down lately. I lost my job a while ago and ... OK, so it was kind of my fault because I was never very good at it, but I still really miss it, you know?

‘So you thought you’d get away for a bit?’

‘It’s complicated,’ I said. ‘But something like that, yeah.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you haven’t got anything better to do, I’m in the mood for an adventure.’

‘Me too,’ I said. Maybe she seemed familiar because I was falling in love with her, and that’s what falling in love is like.

 

The adventure happened to look and smell and taste more like a curry than an adventure, but that was good, because I suddenly realised I was starving.

We took the Tube out east to Brick Lane. The men on the doorsteps of all the curry houses tried to entice us – well, mostly her – to eat in their establishment, but she knew where she wanted to go.

‘Here,’ she said. It was a grotty little place – plastic tables with no cloths, dog-eared menus, the floor none too clean. About half the tables were occupied, all by South Asian people.

‘Nōmōskär,’ she said, coming up behind one of the waiters and putting her hands over his eyes. I felt a little stab of jealousy. He turned, and split his face into a huge grin. ‘Tammy-ji!’ Then he started speaking to her very fast in a language I couldn’t understand. She spoke back to him in the same language and they both laughed.

‘Sorry,’ she said, turning back to me. ‘That was rude of me. Dewan is an old, old friend – I’m part Bangladeshi, in case you hadn’t gathered.

‘Your lady friend,’ said Dewan, ‘your lady friend saved my life and made my fortune, and my family’s fortune. Please. Come and eat with us.’

We didn’t eat in the restaurant, but upstairs, where the family sat on sofas and chairs and the floor around a wide, low table, onto which two women kept loading curries and tandoori, bread and rice and samosas and pakoras and ... so many good things. There were about a dozen people, from the wrinkled old lady who sat in pride of place in an armchair covered in blankets, to a baby at her young mother’s breast. They were all chattering and laughing away, in a mixture of languages: English and Bangla, and whatever it is that babies talk. Everyone deferred to the old lady, and listened attentively when she spoke, but even she deferred to Tamesa, putting her hands together in a respectful ‘Namaste’ gesture, and calling her ‘mother’.

 

We ended up back at Tamesa’s flat. _One of_ her flats, I expect. It was in Shoreditch, sandwiched between a yoga studio and a delicatessen.

While she made us coffee, I recalled the gratitude of the old lady, the anger of the drunk in leather trousers, and what the homeless man had said, and I started to wonder. ‘What are you?’ I said.

She shrugged. ‘I’m part Bangladeshi, as I said, but I’m part a lot of other things as well.’

‘I didn’t mean race,’ I said. ‘I meant ...’ But she was leaning forward, offering me a kiss, and I took it, closing my eyes and getting lost in the warm thrill of it. That was when I knew I was right. Here was a kindred spirit, here was my kind of woman.

I put my hand to her waist, and started undoing her belt. She helped me and threw it to the floor, where it formed near-perfect circle. I helped unzip her dress, then she stood and let it fall, slinking down to fill the belt circle with its folds. She wasn’t wearing any underwear, but the blue scarf stayed on, half-veiling her perfect breasts in its translucent folds.

Then she removed that too, and it fell on top of the dress. The way it fell, it looked almost like ... no, _exactly_ like, the shape the river Thames makes as it flows through London. There I saw the Isle of Dogs, and there it sharply turned southwards somewhere around Westminister.

Her smile was triumphant, as she saw I understood. I am London, that smile seemed to say, and you, like so many millions before you, have fallen in love with me. And she was so right about me, and so wrong about me, and I hated her and loved her so, that all I could do was reach out and lose myself in the sweetness of her body.

 

The next morning we curled up on her sofa, holding steaming mugs of coffee. ‘When did you guess?’ she asked.

‘There wasn’t really a single moment,’ I said. Then: ‘Listen, I’d like to see you again.’

This time there was a little cruelty in her smile. ‘We can see each other whenever you like,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not you the city, you the ... you.’

She drew back a tiny bit, making herself look taller, regal, aloof and inhuman. ‘I am thousands of years old,’ she said. ‘I have seen more beauty and terror than could fit into a million human lifetimes, and I have held them in my hand. I have loved, and been both loved and hated. I am famous the world over. I have bred heroes and villains. Wars have been fought for possession of my body and soul, and often lost, but never won, for I am myself alone, and I alone possess myself.’

I think she could see from my face that I was not as impressed as she was expecting. She tried a different tack. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I may look like a woman, but I’m not. I don’t want to be mean, but my mind isn’t something you could even imagine. All life within me is my life and ... OK, put it like this. Being the capital city of England is really fucking complicated.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know.’

She laughed. ‘You _really_ don’t,’ she said. ‘It’s like ... OK, so your body contains millions of bacteria. If you were like me, it would be like every one of them had a complex inner life, and a personal and individual relationship to you, while at the same time also negotiating relationships with your peers. Like, for most of this year, Edinburgh has been phoning me every day saying “I’m totally going to divorce you, oh no, wait, maybe I’m not”, and Cardiff is like “if Edinburgh gets a divorce, I want one too” and don’t even get me started on Belfast.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I remember. Borders are a pain. Fucking Tamworth thinking Mercia is a separate country. What even is Mercia? I said to her, look, you’re good at pigs. Keep going with the pigs, and leave the capital citying to those of us who know what we’re doing.’

And seeing London’s face as she worked it out was basically the best thing ever. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘What? Who are you. Are you like ...’

‘Winchester,’ I said. ‘When I said I lost my job a while ago ... well, it was about a millennium-sized while ago. And it was you I lost it to.’

She put her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle. ‘That’s–’ she started. ‘That’s ...’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I said. ‘I am really fucking glad I’m retired now. I wouldn’t want my old job back for all the world. It’s just ... I get nostalgic sometimes, you know?’

‘God yeah,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s possible to live as long as us and not get nostalgic.’

‘Speaking of which,’ I said. ‘That bar last night ...’

She sighed. ‘I’d been thinking the same thing,’ she said. ‘Shall I let it off the hook?’

‘More to the point,’ I said, ‘why not try letting yourself off the hook a bit? Have some time off. Let Manchester or Liverpool or somewhere take some of the strain. Didn’t you have more fun when you were full of artists and shopkeepers and factory workers as well as bankers?’

She looked kind of hurt. ‘I have fun,’ she said. ‘I have lots of fun. Bankers can be fun.’

Then both of us burst out laughing. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Point taken. Come on, let’s go out for breakfast. I know a place where they do awesome pancakes.’

 


End file.
